A series of random and irregular jottings, documenting matters of interest (to me) in the sphere of amateur radio and beyond.

Sunday, 17 April 2011

g1dva Beacon Kit

Having splashed out on a g1dva beacon kit from Kanga-UK last weekend at the NARSA rally, I thought it would be politic to make it before seeing the man himself at our WARC meeting on Tuesday...

The build instructions are available from the Kanga website. I followed them and ended up with a working beacon - but not until I realized that the crystal was dead. I've never killed a crystal before by soldering it in place, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

Here's the made-up kit (now sporting a socket for the xtal and a temporary 3.579... colour-burst crystal for testing)

The beacon worked first time (second time, if you count the dead crystal), announcing its presence with a QRQ version of my call (note to self: that's a good idea - must work it into the multi-mode beacon). Here's the FSKCW signal from the beacon, locally captured...

Here's the QRSS CW output too...

I guess (given similar experience with my own beacons) that a small enclosure will help the frequency stability.

Once I have a replacement 3.5 MHz crystal, I'll put the beacon on the air and tell you of any reception reports.

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About Me

Engineer, who grew up in the age when hobbyists used a soldering iron (rather than a mouse) to mess with computers. Came late in life to amateur radio, where he operates the station m0xpd, conducts pointless experiments, and plays with words and ideas.